# 4748c - 2013 First-Class Forever Stamp - Modern Art in America: Stuart Davis' "House and Street"
Perforations: Serpentine Die Cuts 10 1/2
Color: multicolored
Death Of Stuart Davis
Stuart Davis was born on December 7, 1892, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The son of two artists, Stuart Davis was exposed to the creative world at an early age.
Davis began his formal art training in 1909, studying under Robert Henri from the Ashcan School (a form of realist art that pictured daily life in New York’s impoverished neighborhoods). One of the greatest lessons Davis received at this time was that “Art was not a matter of rules and techniques or the search for an absolute ideal of beauty. It was the expression of ideas and emotions about the life of the time.”
Over the next few years, Davis spent his summers painting in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and made trips to Havana in 1918 and New Mexico in 1923. Davis was initially drafted into World War I but was instead allowed to work as a cartographer for the Army Intelligence Department. In the years since the Armory Show, Davis attempted to copy the styles he’d seen there. Then in 1919, he began to find his own signature style when he created his painting Self-Portrait. Throughout the 1920s, Davis began to focus on abstract still lifes and landscapes. He often painted everyday items such as cigarette packs and spark plug advertisements, which added an element of proto-pop art to his work.
Click here to view some of Davis’ art.
Perforations: Serpentine Die Cuts 10 1/2
Color: multicolored
Death Of Stuart Davis
Stuart Davis was born on December 7, 1892, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The son of two artists, Stuart Davis was exposed to the creative world at an early age.
Davis began his formal art training in 1909, studying under Robert Henri from the Ashcan School (a form of realist art that pictured daily life in New York’s impoverished neighborhoods). One of the greatest lessons Davis received at this time was that “Art was not a matter of rules and techniques or the search for an absolute ideal of beauty. It was the expression of ideas and emotions about the life of the time.”
Over the next few years, Davis spent his summers painting in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and made trips to Havana in 1918 and New Mexico in 1923. Davis was initially drafted into World War I but was instead allowed to work as a cartographer for the Army Intelligence Department. In the years since the Armory Show, Davis attempted to copy the styles he’d seen there. Then in 1919, he began to find his own signature style when he created his painting Self-Portrait. Throughout the 1920s, Davis began to focus on abstract still lifes and landscapes. He often painted everyday items such as cigarette packs and spark plug advertisements, which added an element of proto-pop art to his work.
Click here to view some of Davis’ art.